Spoilers, Sherlock, Crazypants, Warning, Etc.
So at 10:38 last night, following the conclusion of The Reichenbach Fall, I muted the TV sound and pulled out a pen and a notebook. Flipped the notebook to the first blank page, and wrote the following heading: The Problem With The Reichenbach Fall (a brainstorm)At 2 this morning, I was still chewing on it
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With that in mind, I've been thinking about Sherlock and Moriarty's scene on the roof of St. Bart's. There's one two-shot angle they have, where the camera would be placed about 8 or 10 feet beyond the roof edge, when the two men are standing there contemplating the drop. It's a beautifully flat clean shot, I really love that one. But then compare that to this other shot they cut to, a low side angle, when Sherlock & Moriarty are facing each other, and godawful lens flare all over the place.
It's at that bit where Sherlock is saying he 'may be on the side of the angels, but don't think for one second he is one of them'. And thanks to the lens flare, you can't see his damned face. All you see is Moriarty's reaction, this moment of enlightenment he has, this almost touching arrival at some kind of acceptance. That moment is all about what he sees in Sherlock, and the shot is deliberately constructed so that we can't see it. We can't see Sherlock's eyes, we can't see what Moriarty sees, which of course is the very message of that shot.
Interesting, in contrast to all the effort put forth, to show us the world through Sherlock's eyes. Images from his mind-palace, the text hovering around clues, the anatomical weaknesses of that CIA agent in Scandal (greatest moment ever). The takeaway? Sherlock's lucid rational vision; in opposition to Moriarty's worldview being something we can't conceive or shouldn't, maybe the equivalent of looking into the sun.
Alright, so let's take the message that Moriarty is incomprehensible--what he sees, what he does, why he does it-- and kick it around some. Because if Just Because is really Gatiss & Moffat's answer, I will cry and never stop. Just Because could be anything, it could be something that wasn't even worth all of John Watson's pain, and I can't have that, sorry. I will make shit up, if I have to.
The Final Problem. "Staying alive", is what Moriarty says. Which supposing, in his weird opaque totally obsessed head, is a tribute. Supposing he brings Sherlock the most difficult, problematic, compelling challenge he can devise. Like a gift, to see if Sherlock can be worthy of it. The best of my brain to meet the best of yours.
The fact that it's liable to kill Sherlock, or both of them, is sort of immaterial. Or the permanent consequences of death is what's immaterial. Supposing Moriarty doesn't register the possibility that if either of them dies, there will be no more anything, ever. No points counted, no knowing who was right or who won in the end. No post-game recap, no applause or recognition, or anything.
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Supposing the only thing Moriarty sees in the possibility of death, is the most decisive motivator he can manipulate someone with. He uses it on other people, but it's as if he has no grasp of its meaning. Which strikes me as weirdly affecting, for some reason. It's a level of dissociation that's nearly childlike in its innocence. Add in his sudden tantrums, his mood swings, his seeming conviction that there is nothing on earth that can restrain him. His is an ego that has outstripped all sense of the laws of nature and reality, he does not realize that he is not actually a god. It does not compute.
Add in his capability to withstand weeks of interrogation, just to get stories of Sherlock out of Mycroft (that was the real purpose of the fake computer code, to get Mycroft to talk to him); this is a man who likes to play a long complex game, price no object, and hell if he doesn't have an infernal gift for it.
Moriarty is a devil of an interesting villain; stark crazy and strangely innocent evil, and in his psychosis he has effectively exempted himself from any attempts we might make to humanize him. Which is nice, it's refreshing in a way. His contradictions are laid out like a minefield; anywhere you hit him you're liable to get your face blown off, which is so much more fun than Damaged Childhood, or Lifelong Grudge, or Buried Trauma In His Past.
Moriarty just Is, and you're no more going to fix him than you're going to fix a supermassive black hole.
So then what does he do, when he finds someone potentially extraordinary? An actual fellow being, maybe the same godlike species as him, walking the earth? He tests them in the best crucible he can devise, to see if they really are like him.
In short, he aims to give the boy he has a crush on that boy's own bleeding broken burnt-out heart for a trophy. To show how he admires him. He dances them both right to the edge of the cliff and then off it, to prove that they are both alive in a way that nothing else in the universe is. And that is a sensible course of action, when it's factored in that the end of that fall is not an issue of consequence. It doesn't exist in Moriarty's reality.
Okay, I think I have a workable line on the Why now. Feeling much better, time for tea and cookies.
(still not writing the fic.)
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Screencaps illustrating use of the diopter lens. Check the next page of caps (page 7), and you'll see the regular lens with a normal depth of field.
Close two-shot on the roof at St. Bart's, nice flat lighting. I misremembered the camera distance, looks like. Maybe 4 to 6 feet-ish? Whatever.
First of a few pages of shots of Sherlock being eaten by lens flare, while Moriarty has a Road to Damascus look on him. Nifty how from page 14 to 17, the camera level sinks down from Sherlock's eyeline, to Moriarty's. Yo, I've just discovered that screencaps are the shiznit.
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